Enjoy these zesty sugar cookies decorated with popping candy, topped with mini skull coated candies. An excellent treat for Día de Muertos, Halloween, or pirate parties. A few dozen of these treats make a nice tablescape and will scare up big smiles from your guests.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Conquer your Halloween or spooky party fears with these cookies. Delicious citrus sugar cookies decorated with sanding sugar and candied jack-o'-lantern faces. Share with your friends as you tell tales of the devilish Jack from Ireland.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Sugar cookies brightened with citrus zest and with a buttery molasses filling. Topped with rainbow nonpareils. A few dozen of these fun treats make a nice tablescape for birthdays, circus themed parties, and events.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Enjoy these delicious pumpkin cupcakes, decorated with a swirl of natural orange colorant and white frosting, and topped with mini skulls coated candies. An excellent treat for Día de Muertos, Halloween, or pirate parties.

These cupcakes were favorited by Gordon Ramsay's MasterChefJunior Logan Guleff.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

This classic sugar cookie is highlighted with citrus oils and zest. Crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, topped with a sprinkling of sanding sugar, these fineries make for a compulsive habit. Order a few dozen of these elegant treats to make a delicious tablescape for your next party or event.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Teacher Show and Tell Saturdays originated from the desire to celebrate and honor excellent teaching and learning that takes place every day. Learning and growth ignites through great teacher-student relationships founded upon respect for each other, mutual curiosity about learning, and great effort on both parts. The other significant key is the school-parent connection. The more we share and promote the excitement of learning, the payoff of hard work, and the value of strong parent partnerships, the more we celebrate and bring to the forefront the tasks teachers do each day in classrooms. The more we then know about the effective and masterful individuals we call teachers.

An effective teacher is one that recognizes, applies, and role models a good attitude. A good attitude is essential to growing and learning. Masterful teachers have in place procedures before the first day of school to create a climate students want to learn in and one students understand how works. Dr. Harry Wong explained it well in The First Days of School, "Teachers who know how to achieve student success employ effective practices. These teachers know how to manage their classroom, they teach for mastery." Teacher Show and Tell Saturdays is an opportunity to share great ideas, your achievements, and demonstrates the fallacy that edu-celebrities, politicians, and edu-corporations know best.

How It Works

Teacher Show and Tell Saturdays is for all teachers, all grade levels, college, trade schools, military academies, home schools, and Sunday schools.

3. Each Saturday post a photo of your work with a caption on all your social media sites. This is a positive celebration and sharing of all the great things going on in your classroom. Keep the caption short and sweet. Use the hashtag #TeacherShowandTellSaturdays.

For example

"#TeacherShowandTellSaturdays: We enjoyed this science activity."

4. Encourage your colleagues to share too.

The Legals

1. Follow the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and/or other laws and regulations in your community, school district, school, and contract.

2. Images are to depict your work or the great work of a teacher you know. Do not include the faces of minors or others that do not want to be photographed.

3. Follow all copyright, patent, and trademark laws and regulations.

4. You may wish to watermark or copyright your images to protect them as yours.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Serve these exciting cookies after a day of fun running through autumn leaves strewn on the ground. These sugar cookies are enlivened with a zest of citrus, decorated with popping candy, and topped with gummi pumpkins.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

A devilish treat for Día de Muertos, Halloween, and pirate parties. Rich in flavor, light in texture, an elegant way to scare up smiles from your guests. A delicious chocolate cupcake, topped with ganache, black sugar sprinkles, and a skull and crossbones party pick.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Autumn is fully charged with orange, red, and golden light. Enjoy these delicious pumpkin cupcakes with a swirl of natural orange colorant and white frosting, topped with a Jelly Belly Gummi Sour Pumpkin. An excellent Halloween party or Thanksgiving treat.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Better than black roses, a box of spiders, or a scream, your loved ones will appreciate a dozen or two or three of these fineries. These sugar cookies are crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, brightened with citrus zest, decorated with sparkling sugar, sandwiched between molasses filling, atop a spooky straw. A few dozen of these elegant treats make a nice tablescape in vases for holiday parties.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Enliven your Halloween or spooky party with these cupcakes. A delicious pumpkin cupcake topped with natural orange colorant frosting and candied jack-o'-lantern face. Share with your friends as you tell tales of the devilish Jack from Ireland.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Our own bad habits, mental and physical health conditions, childhoods, and images we see in media have an impact on our lives. When we see singers, actors, commercials, movies, athletes, and other media they often drown us in ideas we may not stop to question and contemplate. Eating poorly, drugs, certain relationships, overspending, et cetera are a few of these messages we receive each day.

Each of these has opportunity costs. That brings us to the big question. Why do we do it? Why do we do the things that we know don’t elevate our lives and the lives of others. If you do not exercise, if you sabotage your diet with soda, lots of processed foods, drugs, alcohol, and emotionally bad habits, then there are many immediate and late term consequences. Most of us know that and for some of us there are strong powerful forces at work that draw us in to bad thinking and activities.

We need to know a lot of information to filter out the negative messages and choose positive ways to spend our time and energy. Do activities you enjoy and make them as enjoyable as possible. Don’t fool yourself or allow others to fool you. "Bread and circuses" is an old trick used by politicians and wealthy vultures to distract us from the harsh realities of our culture, throw the people a few gladiator games and they won't notice Rome is falling. Throw the people some drugs and they won't notice their country is the next Rome.

We all know drug use is not liberating, it is not an expression of freedom, it is not living. Taking drugs damages your physical, mental, and social health. Most drugs stimulate the brain’s pleasure and reward system. This fools the brain into thinking it is a good thing. Marijuana damages the lungs, affects brain function, causes depression, and affects reaction time when driving. There is also an opportunity cost to drugs, spending money on drugs means that you are not spending money better on yourself or helping others.

“Have ye not known that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own, for ye were bought with a price; glorify, then, God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Young's Literal Translation)

Drugs fool the brain and are a big business opportunity, as some companies, celebrities, and others want to legalize them and make money from selling drugs. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. You may know or have seen many smart, intelligent people promoting drug use. As we all know the appearance of intelligence does not equate to always being correct or being honest. The same goes for countries that have legalized certain drugs.

Jumping on the bandwagon because everyone else is doing it is no justification for following along. The drug legalization lobby is not logical nor angelic in their promotion of drugs, as “the relationship between legalization and increased use becomes evident when you consider two current ‘legal drugs,’ tobacco and alcohol. The number of users of these ‘legal drugs’ is far greater than the number of users of illegal drugs. (http://www.justice.gov/)

Feel free to use my Drug Facts Partner Quiz at the dinner table with your family, perhaps in your classroom, group, or organization. Also, please share your experience and suggestions for what works best to learn about drugs and living the best possible life.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

The culinary world is an incestuous field composed of its own heroes, villains, newbies, elders, and hidden talents. In all fields there are certain individuals and companies that climb their way to the top or are pulled to the top. Peering into the hub of the culinary world we learn a lot about each of these figures and companies and how their branches of relationships are influential. These dominant figures may at times be in competition for book sales, customers, and readers, yet their entangled business and social lives reveal a respect for other professionals and elites within the field. If you are looking to improve your skills in the kitchen, enter the culinary field yourself, or are generally more interested in learning about food and cooking, then the following twitter connections are worth checking out. After each key figure below is a list of ten twitter accounts they follow that you may find useful.

Martha does not follow a tremendous amount of well known celebrity chefs, companies, celebrities, politicians, or newsmakers. A curiosity, although Martha’s company has several twitter accounts that collectively follow a range of individuals and companies.

@jamieoliver: He is one of the world's best-loved television personalities and one of Britain's most famous exports.

@chef_morimoto: Chef Masaharu Morimoto—known to millions as the star of Iron Chef and Iron Chef America—has garnered critical and popular acclaim for his seamless integration of Western and Japanese ingredients.

@netanyahu: Updates from the Likud Office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel.

Whole Foods follows tend to be health, gourmet, and celebrity chef related. Additionally, the twitter master at Whole Foods does a good job following many customers. A lesson many companies and high stature figures on twitter should copy to better public relations.

@Lizzyfit: Health & Medical reporter.

@SAVEURMAG: Savoring a world of authentic cuisine.

@AMNH: The American Museum of Natural History.

@fandw: On a mission to find the most exciting places, new experiences, emerging trends and sensations.

@GoneCrackers: Committed to making the best tasting wheat-free and gluten-free baked goods.

@Raytheon: Raytheon is an international defense tech company.

@amandafreitag: Chef extraordinaire and TV personality.

@Chop_Butchery: A small neighborhood butcher shop and a USDA facility to make salami in the city of Portland.

VeeV began in 2007 by the Reum brothers, based on the acai berry. Their brand of organic and social conscious products has enjoyed much success. The word VeeV is a Latin reference to living life. Hmm...sounds familiar. In fact, our kindred names may be one reason they follow me on twitter.

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.

Shop Jesse Bluma at Pointe Viven

Disclaimer

Jesse Bluma at Pointe Viven is editorially independent. No payment is accepted for editorial coverage. Third-party advertising companies are used to serve ads when you visit this site. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

Amazon Associate Disclaimer

Jesse Bluma at Pointe Viven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Jesse Bluma at PointeViven

Jesse Bluma at Point Viven liberates taste in cookery, culture, and community, provides gourmet goods made with organic ingredients, inspired by the culinary worlds of California, Central, and South America, and engages in a community of customers and readers with lifestyle content, reviews, and expertise. Use and redistribution of original content allowed only with explicit permission of site owner and author.